Literacy programs ell students

Early Literacy Instruction. Reading Instruction in Grades Reading Engagement. Writing Instruction for ELLs. Featured Video. Instruction of key academic vocabulary with high school ELLs. Adjusting instruction for ELLs with disabilities: Dysgraphia. Reading instruction for ELLs at an intermediate level. Having trouble with the way questions are worded. Supporting struggling readers in high school. Brainstorming a journal assignment with high school ELLs.

Higher-level questions: Thinking about magic. How to scaffold reading comprehension questions for ELLs. Answering guiding questions with middle school ELLs. Reading non-fiction text with high school ELLs. Introducing different versions of "Cinderella". Reading at the right level: The five-finger rule. Keeping them engaged in Shared Inquiry and giving them a voice in the discussion will bring benefits to all your students.

Please get in touch with the Great Books educational consultant for your state or region by clicking below to set up a meeting. We will help get you started or arrange for additional training to help all students benefit from participating in Junior Great Books and inquiry-based learning!

Use question and sentence stems for younger or older learners to get conversations started! Teri Laliberte has over 20 years of experience working with learners from a variety of backgrounds.

With 15 years of experience working with English language learners, she has supported language growth and acquisition in her students, along with the needed academic skills of critical thinking, listening, and speaking. Prior to rejoining the Great Books Foundation, she spent 15 years working with adult learners in higher and continuing education, honing her skills by meeting the needs of various learners in literacy, communication, and critical thinking.

Listening and Reading ELL students can comprehend texts well given time and exposure; maybe not every word, but given adequate support, they can understand enough of a selection to complete interpretive activities and contribute to class discussions. Junior Great Books Session 3 Shared Inquiry Discussion Supplying your ELL students with the focus question before discussion can help them compose their claims in English with enough time and confidence to be ready for the discussion.

In all the activities be sure to offer ELL students: Extra time Question and sentence stems for younger and older learners Opportunities to work in their native language to solve problems of meaning Peer support and review English language learners bring a wealth of ideas and perspectives to your classroom.

Jack Richards. Bridging the gap between receptive and productive competence. World of Better Learning , August 27, Teri Laliberte. Professional Learning Consultant Teri Laliberte has over 20 years of experience working with learners from a variety of backgrounds.

It is particularly important to recognize the role that phonological awareness plays as children with limited English proficiency LEP learn to read, both in their native language L1 and in their second language L2. Characteristically, these children exhibit both unique strengths and unique deficiencies in this area. In other words, phonological awareness skills developed in L1 transfer to L2 and facilitate L2 literacy development. Phonological awareness skills are known to develop in a predictable pattern, which is the same from one language to another i.

Gottardo explored this connection between native language phonological skills and second language reading in a study with 92 Spanish-speaking first graders. She found that the strongest predictors of English word reading ability were L1 and L2 phonological processing, L1 reading, and L2 vocabulary Gottardo, The ability of phonological awareness skills to transfer from one language to another presents advantages that are readily apparent; however, transfer can also bring disadvantages.

Sometimes L2 learners inappropriately generalize their first language's rules of syntax, spelling, phonology, or pragmatics to their second language. In terms of phonological awareness, the closer the phonologies of L1 and L2, the greater the likelihood that transfer of skills will be positive rather than negative because children are more adept at manipulating the sounds and patterns that exist in their native language Bialystok, An important factor here may be the type of phonological skill in question.

As Durgunoglu notes, "there are certain literacy concepts and strategies that can be universal and operate across languages. These insights and skills need to be acquired only once and apply in all languages of LLs. However, there are also language-specific concepts and knowledge; for example, orthographic patterns that are specific to a language" p.

Discussions of literacy instruction for English language learners frequently focus on language of instruction. There is not enough evidence to recommend definitively that overall literacy instruction should be confined to either L1 or L2. Nevertheless, the strong link between L1 phonological awareness and L2 reading success suggests that efforts to develop literacy skills in L1 will translate into facility with L2 literacy development and that children will benefit from native language scaffolding as they learn to read in a second language.

Teachers can play an important role in encouraging families of students with LEP to provide L1 literacy experiences at home. Parents may not know that literacy experiences in the child's first language will contribute to literacy development in English. In addition, families often cannot find or afford children's books in their language. Assessment is an important part of any literacy program, and special attention should be given to assessing the language and literacy skills of English language learners.

Even then, one must keep in mind that the balance between languages is constantly changing, and language dominance can quickly shift.

As the child becomes more proficient in English, he or she may actually lose ground in his or her first language, resulting in a situation in which testing would reveal relative weakness in both languages. Educators must be allowed to be creative and flexible in choosing and interpreting assessments for children with limited English proficiency.

Assessment in both languages is particularly important in reading. If a bilingual child is having difficulty with reading in English, it is sometimes difficult to know whether the problem is the result of a reading disability or simply reflects a deficit in English language proficiency. Since literacy skills are known to transfer across languages, if these skills are present in the child's L1 but not in his or her L2, this indicates a deficit in L2 language proficiency and not a reading disability.

This type of assessment would distinguish between students with special needs and students who simply need to improve their English language proficiency. Much of the research on phonological awareness and phonological transfer suggests that overall, bilingual children may have more highly developed metalinguistic skills than monolingual children Bialystok, ; G. As Lundberg notes, "the early confrontation with a new language seems to stimulate a metalinguistic attitude; the child starts to think about linguistic form rather than content" p.

Gersten and Geva spent two years observing 34 first grade classrooms in which at least three fourths of the students were English learners. Their goal was to link specific instructional strategies to reading growth among English language learners. The researchers identified six facets of instruction that predicted student growth in reading: explicit teaching; English learning; phonemic awareness and decoding; vocabulary development; interactive teaching; and instruction geared toward low performers.

The effective teachers in this study systematically taught phonological awareness skills and decoding and then reinforced these skills through reading and writing. Teachers can also use knowledge of the primary language to understand their students' development. If teachers can familiarize themselves with the basics of phonology and spelling in their students' first language, this will help them to better understand their students' literacy development in English, and they will be better prepared to help students develop both English literacy skills and oral language proficiency Helman, Teachers of students with LEP can also use developmental spelling assessments to identify areas in which interference, or negative transfer, from L1 is causing problems.

Beginning spellers, for example, use letter names to represent sounds. For example, an English speaker who is a beginning speller might spell "make" as "mak. Helman recommends beginning instruction for bilingual children with what she terms the commonalities, that is, the sounds and patterns that the two languages share p. Teachers can then move on to sounds and patterns that are different in the two languages.

In this way, teachers can build upon the natural transfer of phonological abilities from L1 to English while using the confusion that may result from negative transfer as a springboard for discussion. It is also important to balance phonics instruction with reading of connected text.

Students with limited English proficiency often continue to experience difficulties with reading, even after mastering the basic skills needed for decoding English text.

Limited vocabulary and lack of background knowledge contribute to difficulties with reading comprehension, which often persist into the high school years. Developing vocabulary and background knowledge will contribute to success in reading comprehension. English language learners benefit from explicit instruction in vocabulary. Organizing vocabulary around a theme facilitates learning.

English language learners need opportunities to build background knowledge. Pre-reading activities can be used to identify gaps in students' knowledge and to introduce new concepts and vocabulary.

Anthony, J. The nature of phonological awareness: Converging evidence from four studies of preschool and early grade school children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 96 1 , August, D. Literacy for English-language learners: Four key issues.

Paper presented at the U. Improving schooling for language-minority students: A research agenda. Bear, D. Words their way: Word study for phonics, vocabulary, and spelling instruction 2nd ed. Columbus, OH: Prentice-Hall. Bialystok, E. Acquisition of literacy in bilingual children: A framework for research. Language Learning, 52 1 , Brice, A. Choice of languages in instruction. Teaching Exceptional Children, 33 4 , Carlisle, J. Relationship of metalinguistic capabilities and reading achievement for children who are becomming bilingual.

Applied Psycholinguistics, 20, Cisero, C. The development and cross-language transfer of phonological awareness.